Is the European R&D Network Homogenous? Spatial Interaction Modeling of Network Communities Determined Using Graph Theoretic Methods

Interactions between firms, universities, and research organizations are crucial for successful innovation in the modern knowledge-based economy. Systems of such interactions constitute R&D networks, which may be meaningful segmented using recent methods for identifying communities, subnetworks whose members are more tightly linked to one another than to other members of the network. In this paper we identify such communities in the European R&D network using data on joint research projects funded by the fifth European Framework Programme. We characterize the identified communities according to their thematic orientation and spatial structure. By means of a Poisson spatial interaction model, we estimate the impact of various separation factors - such as geographical distance - on the variation of cross-region collaboration activities in a given community. The European coverage is achieved by using data on 255 NUTS-2 regions of the 25 pre-2007 EU member-states, Norway, and Switzerland. The results demonstrate that European R&D networks are not homogeneous, showing distinct, relevant substructures characterized by thematically homogeneous and spatially heterogeneous community groups.